Comment by cpursley

I disagree entirely with your statement "Russia has objectively outclassed the West with missile tech (and defense)." Ukraine has shown that the A2AD, "hypersonic" and cruise missile tech touted by the Russians for decades aren't quite as impressive as the marketing brochures would imply.

Let's just look at AA gear. Pantsir has been shown to be ineffective against most drones, Storm Shadow, etc. Same with BUK. S300 and S400 have really good range, but I think that Patriot and SAMP stand up well in comparison. The Ukrainians are using older Patriot missiles and are successfully engaging Khinzal and any cruise missile the Russians can throw at it. NATO has THAAD and better versions of Patriot in their arsenal, so even being generous, I think this is a draw.

For offensive weapons, the Russians have nothing in the class of SCALP/Storm Shadow, much less JASSM/LRASM. They would even have a hard time coping with Tomahawk.

So what weapon system are the Russians going to use against Lakenheath and Mildenhall? A Kalibr is going to have a very hard time making it across the Baltics to the UK, and I doubt any aircraft doing a suicide mission would make it either. How about Aviano? Same problem. Ramstein and Spangdahlem as well.

And Russia sure has done a great job "pummeling" Ukrainian airbases, right? I mean, they've utterly failed at this. The Ukrainians are still flying Fencers, Fulcrums and Frogfoots from their bases.